Celebrities criticise Derek Jarman’s comments about Sir Ian McKellen
On this day in 1991 a public disagreement broke out between many LGBTIQ celebrities and filmmaker Derek Jarman. Actor Sir Ian McKellen had been granted a knighthood in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.
Jarman publicly chastised McKellen for accepting the honour from the UK’s conservative government arguing that the same government that was honouring the LGBTI rights advocate had also been responsible for some of the most homophobic policies.
Writing in The Guardian, Jarman said he was dismayed the McKellen had accepted the honour.
“As a queer artist, I find it impossible to react with anything but dismay to his acceptance of the honor from a government which has stigmatized homosexuality.
“Maybe Ian McKellen will use this knighthood to try to influence the government. But I’m not at all certain. I think it’s a co-option and allows anyone to say: ‘The Tory Party isn’t so bad. It’s not really anti-gay. After all it gave Ian McKellen a knighthood.’ And he fell for them and accepted.”
In response a number of celebrities and people with a public profile collectively said they wanted to “respectfully distance” themselves from Jarman’s comments and voiced support for McKellen.
For many of the signatories of the statement, it was the first time they had publicly acknowledged that they were gay.
Among the signees were Simon Callow, Michael Cashman, Nancy Diuguid, Simon Fanshawe, Stephen Fry, Philip Hedley, Bryony Lavery, Michael Leonard, David Lun, Tim Luscombe, Alec McCowen, Cameron Mackintosh, Pam St. Clement, John Schlesinger, Antony Sher, and Martin Sherm.
Many British TV viewers were shocked to discover actor Pam St. Clements, who starred on the popular TV soap opera Eastenders identified as bisexual.
McKellen never commented on the controversy, but a few days before Jarman’s article was published he told an interviewer he was in favour of celebrities being open about their sexuality.
Also on this day in history…
On this day in 1978 a group of celebrities took out an advertisement in TIME magazine to ask what was happening to LGBT rights in America. Sir John Gielgud, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and 26 other international celebrities signed the letter which asked “What’s Going on in America?”.
In 1988 in the United Kingdom more than 10,000 lesbians and gay men demonstrated their opposition to Clause 28 by marching through central London.
The new law declared that local government bodies “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. The law was introduced a few months later and stayed on the books until the year 2000.
Sadly in 2009 on this day Cynthia Nicole, a prominent transgender rights activist in Honduras, was fatally shot four times in the early hours of the morning in Comayaguela.
This post was first published in 2020.
